


Other Worlds: A Prologue

by SyntheticAngel



Series: Other Worlds [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Reality, Character Introduction, Dystopian Future, F/M, Fiction, Friendship, OC, Original Character - Freeform, Original Human Characters - Freeform, Outer Space, Romance, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, Slice of Life, Technology, Unrequited Love, original - Freeform, original nonhuman characters, scifi, space, tech
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-01-26 01:28:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21365902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyntheticAngel/pseuds/SyntheticAngel
Summary: Her heart belonged to outer space. io just didn't expect to be going so soon.
Relationships: Original Character(s)/Original Character(s), Original Character/Other(s), Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Series: Other Worlds [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1540339
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	1. Horizon I

**Author's Note:**

> _Is it all an oddity?_   
_Are we flakes of empty dust_   
_Spinning on a ball of rust?_   
_Maybe._
> 
> _\- Starset, Other Worlds than These_

Earth was an anomaly. Hurtling through space never treated anybody right but there it was, cradled in the habitable zone of a yellow dwarf sun and thriving. Not many planets could say they survived asteroid impacts, at least three mass extinction events, and still produce sentient life. And it certainly wasn’t the only of its kind, but it was special.

This story starts the way most do: on a battered planet with funny-looking animals.

None of these funny-looking animals present day were around when extraterrestrial beings contacted earth for the first time. It was about as big a deal as expected, but after a few generations of human beings reacting the way they usually do when faced with something new and unknown, the dust settled.

Only the biggest cities welcomed friendly newcomers. Horizon I was as technologically advanced and progessive as a city on earth got. At the center was a metropolis for innovation and cooperation, but the outskirts looked no better than a lawless wasteland. With glorious human creativity, each of the new extraterrestrial species was aptly named after their distinguishing physical characteristics and life on earth went on.

Somewhat.

“Oh please not again.“

Standing in the middle of the city was a pristine white, high rise office building with an artfully off-center logo. An accountant on the seventh floor all but smacked the side of a computer monitor. Its screen only displayed the name “Isotech” in a sea of dreaded blue. Never a good sign.

The one voicing her grievances was io, a young woman with choppy green hair and defeat in her eyes. It was late; the sun had set, the streets below bustled with last minute holiday shoppers, and io wanted to be anywhere else. She was the perfect picture of the average worker in a quickly changing technology-driven world: semi-fresh out of school, tired all the time, stressed to find purpose. She should be thankful to even have a job, she thought while staring at a frozen computer; at least, that’s what her mother told her any time she mentioned the long hours and lack of breaks. There was no time for breaks. Humans couldn’t be left behind now that they knew life was out there, could they?

Her idle gaze turned to the window, and to the digital billboard advertising interspace travel. The lettering reminded her of ads she used to marvel at in her hometown, but they had been of a different nature.

They were the kind that discouraged extraterrestrial assimilation. She hadn’t grown up in Horizon I but on the edges of its county, where distrust of outer-worlders flourished and she dreamed of what the big city was like. Local newspapers featured articles about the dangers of outer space beings, and how androids were mankind’s most regrettable creation. She remembered an Avem speaking on the tiny living room TV and her hands on the screen, stars in her eyes to be watching a bird talk, a real, human-sized bird. Then it was a fish woman being interviewed on the news, whose species she couldn’t pronounce at the time. How angry her parents had been when they discovered what she was exposed to. She wasn’t allowed to turn on that TV for two weeks.

Unfortunately for them, the aliens on the screen were only part of the problem. Nothing held a candle to her love for robots. Other kids wanted dolls and toy guns, but io had begged for a robot puppy. Too expensive, her mother would say. First they stole my damn job, now they’re stealing the dogs’ jobs too?! her father spat. It didn’t matter how much she argued that it could be her friend, not when there were plenty of neighborhood kids around to play with. But io didn’t want to play house with Heather Garland up the street, and Dean Witt next door never let her be the space cowboy when they pretended to adventure on other worlds in the endless expanse of space.

Other worlds would have let her be the cowboy. Other worlds would have let her be anything.

As she got older her interest developed a twist. Her middle school math teacher kept robotics magazines in a wicker basket by his desk and a gutsy twelve-year-old io built up the nerve to steal one and hide it in her backpack. Within its pages the copper circuits, smooth white chassis diagrams and shiny control panels touched something inside of her she’d barely begun to understand. She explored that feeling later the same night, long after she should have been asleep. In the next week she went through that magazine until the pages were ready to fall off. Inevitably, her parents found that too and she endured the scolding of a lifetime. It was the last straw, after the noted lack of sleepovers, missed school dances, and turned down birthday party invitations from her classmates. They did what any other reasonable parents would have.

They sent her to a psychologist. 

Dr Martinez was a brightly-dressed energetic woman that plagued her for most of high school. Between all the personality tests and repeated questions, it was a miracle io hadn’t broken down and said whatever she thought the “nice lady trying to help” wanted to hear.

_Technosexuality_ is what she told io’s anxious parents. The cure came in the form of a little bottle of red pills that tasted like sand and went down about as easily. They worked alright--killed what little sex drive she had until she lost her virginity to what’s his face from chemistry and then those pills became birth control. You know, for all the sex she wasn’t having.

Now she stared back at a frozen computer screen seven floors up from where she wanted to be. A delivery drone whizzed by her window outside, one of many. 

She could’ve been anything. After high school came college application time, and while she knew with all her heart she wanted to go into Engineering or Robotics, her parents had the final say (and the money). To them, sending her to study the sciences would have been like an alcoholic learning to be a bartender. So she decided on Accounting. That was safe. And after four long years of studying something she hardly had the passion for, she found the closest she could get to space was Isotech. The rest was history.

_The universe is always changing. We’re here to help you keep up._ She reread the slogan underneath the logo. In two months she would reach her 4th year at the company, and not a single soul knew she’d only wanted to work there because of a love for robots. Her eyes went out of focus and then the lights went out.

She fumbled for her phone, hit her keyboard and knocked her keys onto the floor.

“Are you kidding me??” The voice was semi-panicked. She pushed away from her desk phone in hand and turned its light on.

“Europa you okay?” She navigated out of her cubicle to the hallway, the phone light giving away her nervous shake. A couple of the others in the office voiced annoyance. io held onto a partition until she found her nearest coworker still sitting in her swivel chair, looking only mildly perturbed.

“Yea I’m fine. What the hell is this though?”

“I don’t know.” Her light jerked over the cubicle, to the ceiling, back down. The clock on her phone read 9:04 pm. “We’ve been doing overtime for the last three weeks, I can’t imagine they forgot we’re up here.”

“Ridiculous…” said her coworker, a woman about the same age and sporting a purple bob and thin rimmed glasses. “It’s gotta be something they’re doing down in the lab. Or what about like the weak gravity shit happening on the East coast?” Europa paused. “I don’t know, but if we can’t work then we should leave. Want to get dinner?”

io bit the inside of her cheek. Abandoning post wasn’t something she was entirely comfortable with, especially not with the competitive nature of their employer, but a hot meal sounded great right now. She gave a half-hearted shrug. Not like she had any other plans. 

“Give it ten minutes. If we still have no power then I’m in.”

Her coworker seemed to accept that. She stood idle, toe digging into the carpeting, and a louder commotion began further down the hallway. Whatever it was, they’d notify everyone if it was important. She and Europa chatted instead, for maybe five minutes, until footsteps came up fast.

“io.”

She looked, of course, recognizing the voice immediately. And speaking of history…

Fiery red hair caught her eyes first. Her light shined directly into a tired face, that shielded its eyes and leaned back until she lowered it. Europa behind her snorted.

“Damn that’s bright.”

He dressed nicely, nicer than the business casual that the seventh floor adhered to, but he wore the same exhaustion. Sunken eyes and a smile. 

“Power’s out,” he said cheekily.

“They let you out of the lab?” io shot back with her own smile. Professional. Appropriate. He stared a bit too long. Nerves or butterflies stirred in her stomach.

“Yea well,” he shrugged, rubbing a five o clock shadow, “we’re not back online until tomorrow, so everybody’s done for the night. Just letting the team know.” He emphasized the word as if he was specifically sent to notify accounting, but io didn’t buy it. His hands went into his pockets then. “So I wanted to know if we could catch dinner.”

Oh, her brows rose and she turned her gaze to Europa, who shook her head.

“Yea go, I’m gonna sleep early instead.” She grabbed her belongings in the dim light. “Good enough for me. Catch you guys tomorrow.” She left while thinking aloud:_ the stairs still work, right?_ And then there were two.

io exhaled through her nose.

“Ares do you know why the power went out?” Hushed. Curious red eyes searched his face for answers and came up with nothing. He nodded towards the stairs.

“Dinner first.”

She packed up quickly. Outside, the air was crisp and cold, a little colder for io’s liking but perfect for staying indoors. It buzzed. A walk through Central Horizon I was probably how Alice felt in Wonderland, minus the purple cat and walking playing cards. Neon signs lined the broadway, advertisements for android butlers and space suits. Nothing like the anti-tech propaganda where she grew up. She and Ares stopped at a hole in the wall ramen spot, one of the only places still open at that time of night.

io barely contained the questions; they pressed against her lips and played tiny drums in her throat. She should have been used to it by now, the secrecy. It was about six months ago that she started getting friendly with the Isotech Senior Engineer. Accounts she had been reconciling weren’t matching invoices and she needed the clarification. It was the first time she had gone to the basement level, where not even she was allowed full entry and where she had asked to speak to somebody who might have answers. Ares had answers and more--they had hit it off better than she had with anyone else in the office (or outside of it, for that matter), and when she expressed her interest in tech he gladly showed her everything he could…

And some that he legally couldn’t. He wasn’t the android of her dreams, but he was sweet and he was the first who seemed to be as enthusiastic about robotics as she was. Or at least, didn’t judge her too hard when she asked to touch prototypes of suits on assembly lines down in manufacturing. Fully suited and helmets on, the displays looked like deactivated androids. io had wished they were. Eventually Ares had invited her over, to avoid the long conversations in the hallways where people could clearly see interdepartment fraternizing. 

Their conversations in private became breathless long nights on more than one occasion. Nobody could know about that.

“So,” he began, seated across from her at a small table towards the back. Neon lights bathed the restaurant in pink. The smell of hot broth and meat made her stomach growl. “You’re one of the lucky few who stayed behind for overtime instead of visiting family, huh?” 

io dragged her finger against the condensation of her water glass. “Ah, yea, well my mom’s brother and cousins decided to drop by their house for a week, and it gets hectic as all hell whenever they’re together. They do all the talking, the laughing, the...everything.” Locks of tired hair droop over her face. Not even the styling cream could work a twelve-hour shift. “And you’re the weirdo that wanted to stay just because. No strained family relationships or whatever.”

He found that amusing and leaned in with a wide grin.

“Yea, sure. But I’m glad you're here too.” Atmospheric lighting emphasized his softened gaze. He set a hand on hers. “Really glad.”

The sudden sincerity caught her off guard, direct contrast with the relationship thus far. Coworkers, and nothing more. Guilt crept up her spine and her eyes darted to the chef behind the glass, its mechanical arms moving with precision most human beings could never achieve. The subject changed after that.

It’s not that she didn’t care about Ares, but she didn’t love him either. Not the way he wanted. Not as long as she could look up and dream.

Eventually food came to the table and neither waited for it to cool. In the next hour they talked about almost everything: she told him about the department potluck coming up, and signing up simply to contribute than to socialize, about her roommates and the barking dog next door. He explained that a generator meant for product trial and testing had caused the outage in their building (so anticlimactic!), and talking to his younger brothers through the company tablet before they had to go to sleep. 

He paid for the meal, which she thanked him for. Exhaustion set in as soon as her belly decided it was full but onward they walked towards her apartment. She couldn’t shake the undeniable foreboding that followed in her shadow like a shark in the water. He stopped with her at the door, looked at her like she was the universe.

“io…”

The name was silly, but she loved it. “Evil corporation” or not, the names were Isotech’s way of creating community between the departments. Accounting was awarded the category of Jupiter’s Moons and io claimed her place with pride. It was all she had to show for “making it.”

The dread she felt hearing it from him came from the same childlike fear of disappointing yet another person in her life. 

He was close. Her heart beat in her ears. He leaned in but paused, and her cheeks were a bright red when she realized he was only speaking.

“Want to come down to the lab tomorrow? I know it's been a while and I keep telling you, soon, soon…” his smile is still tired, but it's genuine. She perks up too. 

The resounding yes is all he looked for, and he left after promising to come up for her after her shift ended tomorrow. She watched him walk away until he disappeared.

No, she didn’t love Accounting, and the love interest wasn’t her type, but the stars aligned enough for her to be close enough to what she loved.

Things in Horizon I weren’t half bad.


	2. Approaching Solstice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything is just fine until it isn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I remember blue skies  
I remember how you were  
Sitting under star-shine, ever-bright  
Not ready but you were_
> 
> _ _ \- Starset, Solstice_ _

io woke up the next day before her alarm. Dreams of metal joint seams, a mechanical doll, dispersed the second her sleepy eyes met the wall. No sun yet, but dusty pinks and purples behind the sparse trees held the promise of a clear day. The hour before daybreak was her favorite, when the world still slept and satellites crawled across the open sky, and interspace shuttles departed the stratosphere into the great beyond. Her window had been left open and the cool air would've convinced her to press snooze if she hadn’t already excited herself remembering the details of last night.

_Come down to the lab._ Her feet hit the floor and she ran a hand through her hair. Posters lined the walls of her room--torn magazine inserts of robotics-of-the-month and overblown prints of photos taken through a telescope covered the walls. Above a full length mirror was a diagram of the moon phases; beside it were framed old first moon landing clippings, found at an antique shop and so faded that the letters were barely readable. It’s important to always remember where we came from.

Her roommates were sound asleep, the apartment quiet that morning. She stayed out of their way most of the time, either locked up in her room or at work, but she shared a bathroom and wrinkled her nose to see long hairs stuck to the shower walls. She quickened her pace.

The coffee burned her tongue while she leaned over chipping white balcony railings and watched the city wake. Ships in the distance streamed across the horizon like tiny fish and steam from her mug made the seaspray. A cream crescent floats in the pink, above the piercing tops of executive office buildings. Scenes like these came few and far between but so, so appreciated. It was Horizon I’s promise of more to come.

Her boot heels clicked against the wet sidewalk to a hovering vehicle at the street. She’d driven a car before, back at home where she and her family had shared one and she dreaded refueling purely because of the smell. The freedom she felt in driving a grounded car and pretending it were a spaceship instead was unlike anything she found here. Nobody in Horizon I drove. Not with a transit system that could take one anywhere in the city with 99% less of the accidents caused by human error.

Her cab zipped past slower ones waiting for a call. Brick buildings and sheet metal speed limits turned to sleek paneling and digitized street signs. The Terran Institute of Extra-Planetary Studies. io pressed her hands against the glass, watching students of almost every known extraterrestrial species walk around a fountain that featured a holographic constellation of planets, earth at the center. Maybe not physically accurate, but the symbolism was there.

She could have been walking those halls. The institute was one of the only in the known galaxy that prided itself on intergalactic diversity, a beacon of hope for a tolerant future, and on Earth no less. She sank back into her seat and an overwhelming sadness set a heavy hand on her shoulder until her phone buzzed. Mom.

“Goooood morning!” said io with far too much enthusiasm for 7am. She sits up as if in her parents’ presence and her styled hair brushes against the cab ceiling. She pats it back worriedly. “Isn’t it a bit early for you guys out there?”

“Oh just a bit!” A cheery but static-crusted voice comes through the speaker, but that doesn’t last long. “Only because you didn’t call last night again.”

io stopped herself mid-breath the second she remembered the obligation. She pinched the bridge of her nose in regret.

“I am so sorry. I was uh,” she couldn't say preoccupied thinking about a robotics lab, or hoping that her engineer buddy would unveil an android just for her, made in secret for *all* her household needs. Which would have been truthful, absolutely, but not something she could tell her family. Not after all they’d been through with her already. “I was on a date.”

She pulled the phone away from her ear at the resounding gasp.

“With the work guy?” Her mother asked with rising intonation. io swallowed back a groan but this was far better than scrambling for a better answer. She’d mentioned Ares before. They seemed to like him an awful lot despite never having met him yet.

“Yea, with him. And...it was a late work night anyway so I went right to bed afterwards. I'm super sorry I forgot.” She bit the inside of her cheek and the cab stopped at its destination. She climbed out, phone squished between her face and shoulder, fully expecting the next twenty minutes to be one long gush over thinking about the future.

Instead, her mother kept it at five and let her off the hook. No relentless pressure to settle down this time but a subtle approval of the redheaded engineer. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.

“Anyway hon I wanted to give you a head’s up,” her mother changed course, “keep an eye out on the news, they’re talking about evacuations here now.”

“Evacuations?” io set her bag down at her desk and picked up the pens she’d knocked over in the darkness last night. “What are you talking about?”

“I know, it’s horrible! Your cousins just got here yesterday and then in the evening the rumors started about sinkholes all around Lorain County...anyway we’re packing up and going up north to stay with your uncle instead. He's driving with us.”

io maybe snuck one or two words into the “conversation” while she tidied. Even now, her mother gave excruciating details about the rushed situation and packing only the essentials. She waved silently as Europa passed.

“...but I’ll let you go, sweetheart, looks like they’ve got a checkpoint on the road here, and do let Ares know we appreciated his call, okay? I would have called you anyway but it was nice of him to reach out to us personally. We got out before the official notice went out. We love you! See you soon.”

“I love you too, but hold on-”

How come calls always ended the second she had something important to say? io blinked at her phone before she locked and set it on her desk. And more concerning, how had Ares even gotten her mother’s phone number? She bit the inside of her cheek again. Her gaze went somewhere out the window while she scrambled internally to find answers. Now she’d have to wait an entire day before she could ask Ares himself.

“Oh good...everything works again.” She heard her coworker one cubicle over, with the kind of deadpan sarcasm that pulled her out of her stupor. She logged into her computer with a head shake and pressed smile between keystrokes.

“Not sure about that, I heard gravity stopped working in the bathroom and toilet paper is floating now so you have to catch it before you go or you’re out of luck.”

“Oh stop.”

She cackled and heard Europa grunt her amusement. If it weren’t for the conversation this morning she might’ve elaborated the joke. Her smile waned.

“Really though,” said io, much more seriously, “did you know Elyria was issued an evacuation notice this morning? First they were saying weak gravity but my mom called me saying now it’s sinkholes.”

“Right, your parents are out there, huh?”

“Yea.” Her hand hesitated on her mouse. “But they’re safe, already out of the city limits from what I understood.” Warned early, she wanted to add, but that would require a lot of explaining that she just didn’t have the information for. A knot sat in her stomach and she opened up accounting sheets. Europa expressed relief and their conversation tapered off into quiet office ambience...aside from the TV in the breakroom down the hall. Holiday music drifted from someone else’s cubicle; another piece of normalcy shoehorned into an otherwise worrying start to her day.

The lab...just have to make it to the end of the day.

Her work wasn’t hard, just tedious. She felt herself slip into mindless routine not long after her programs loaded and the earbuds went in, only now she had a few more invoices to process since some of her coworkers were out. The stack in her tray steadily went down, but not even the music kept her attention the entire time. Her mouse hovered over a blinking tab saved on her browser and she glanced back at the hallway to make sure nobody was peeking over her shoulder.

Discount Dan’s Space Tours! Your personal gateway to the stars! The tab had been there for probably four months now. It became a habit of hers to browse the photo gallery, full of smiling faces and different angles of a repurposed bus in otherworldly neon forests and cityscapes. She cringed at the pricetag; despite the enthusiastically circled paydays on her calendar, she was nowhere near her goals now that gift shopping season had stopped her in the street and robbed her of a good chunk of her savings. And Discount Dan’s called themselves a discount retailer? That one-way ticket off planet twinkled impishly at her like Mercury on a clear morning.

She clicked through pages of the offensively garish website anyway. 

Humans have been sending messages off Earth for years. Ever since the aliens answered, Discount Dan’s has been providing quality tours to their home planets. See the Piscis in their fully submerged marketplaces, or grandiose Avem temples gilded in jewels! Take a walk in the lush Plantae forests (from a safe distance, structurally fortified viewing cages will be provided) and whatever you do, do not make eye contact with the locals! 

In smaller text io skims the disclaimers regarding Discount Dan’s limited liability if passengers lose fingers while on a Plantae tour. One of the featured reviews gave a passionate 9/10 despite “spraining an ankle and losing a necklace handed down from her grandmother running from what looked like a rainbow venus flytrap with eyes and legs.” Hard pass.

The sun crawled by overhead and after lunch her patience began to wear thin. Short daylight hours made the work days feel longer and Discount Dan’s was running out of reviews she hadn’t already read ten times over. Chattering from the breakroom drifted into her cubicle as oranges and pinks returned to the sky outside. 

Soon sunlight turned to nightlife glow and io had long been browsing Isotech’s online suit catalogue with deep longing. Affordable options included helmets and atmospheric stabilizers that could keep somebody alive in space, but io had her eyes on the advanced models. A shame she couldn’t afford the merchandise despite working there.

Her stomach grumbled. The clock read 8pm and she grimaced. A measly salad for lunch did almost nothing to keep hunger at bay, but even just an hour away from the end of her shift, she couldn’t wait. 

The TV was still on in the break room, and she grabbed a granola bar from a pile of them on the kitchenette counter. She gagged at the rows of Neutro-Vitamax (now in green!) stocked graciously by Isotech. A drink meant to be filling and quick to ingest, because actually eating cost the company too much time. Tempting, for sure, but it was a “real food” kind of night.

Crunch. She stalled leaning against the counter and imagining what lay hidden in the lab seven floors below. She’d absolutely chew Ares out first, demand to know why he was digging through company files for information he shouldn’t have access to, knock some sense into him that no, it wasn’t socially acceptable to call people’s mothers even if she’d probably have to introduce them someday. If he was so desperate to be part of her life then he’d just have to-

“Breaking news, we bring you live to the east coast where Lunaris and neighboring major portions of New York have sunk into the earth. We have reports stating that cities from New Jersey spanning to Ohio had already seen sinkholes occurring faster than the damages could be repaired. Casualties have to be in at least the hundreds to thousands-” 

io lowered her half-eaten granola bar, otherwise frozen in staring at the television. The newscaster pressed his earpiece and seemed to listen for something before continuing.

“-and, oh god, are you serious? Murphy don’t you have family out there? Call your family.”

“Jay, Europa, hey. HEY. Are you guys seeing this?!” io shouted and her eyes never left the screen. 

“All of Florida? Do we have footage of this?” 

io paled and Europa hissed expletives at the breaking news banner flashing across the bottom of the screen. Entire states sinking. Countless dead. Ongoing catastrophic disaster.

“Are you fucking serious?” More of the office flooded into the break room and the commotion paralyzed io. Her family had been long gone out of Ohio but if the sinking didn’t stop then it wouldn't matter. She felt her pockets for her phone and panicked in realizing it was still at her desk. She pushed through terrified coworkers, her own hands shaking.

“Please stand by, these aren’t the only reports coming in.”

“IO.”

She could’ve given herself whiplash in looking to Ares, standing at Europa’s empty cubicle and out of breath.

“Ares,” she was breathless herself, scared. The privacy breach was the furthest thing from her mind. “The news, sinkholes, the whole east coast is going-”

“I know, but you have to come with me right now.” He had never looked so serious. “Your family is ok. We need to leave.”

“Where?” She squeaked. 

“I told you.” He stretched a hand out and instinctively she took it. “We’re going to the lab.”


	3. Where the Skies End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a search that has continued for centuries,  
Some far, distant view  
With its promise of the unseen,  
And it's promise of the unknown,  
Has forever fathered the impulse  
To seek for new things in new places  
New horizons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _We won't just fall away  
We weren't just born to fade  
Our stories are past the horizon  
We're chasing the sun til we find them  
Goodbye to what we made  
No matter anyway  
We're climbing until we transcend  
Higher, higher  
To where the skies end_
> 
> -Starset, Where the Skies End

He held her hand tightly as they rushed down long stretches of gray hallways and white fluorescent lighting. His coat fluttered behind him and io practically ran to keep up with the long strides. Many of the sterile lights flickered. She peered into open rooms as they passed. Empty.

She wondered if there were evacuation plans set for this type of disaster. What could even be causing something like this on such a large scale? Massive sliding doors made way to the elevator and Ares scanned his keycard once inside. The screen displayed unlocked lower floors, one of them highlighted. He leaned against the railing and his head tilted back to look upward. Her heel tapped against the tile floor. A rumbling outside reverberated through the thick walls and sounded like a low hum. io looked down at their linked hands.

“This keeps happening,” she said, cheeks stinging. Her clammy hand squeezed his.

“What does?” Anticipation burned in his eyes. io caught her breath and exhaled slowly.

“I have to ask you what the hell is going on every time.” A corner of her lips turned upwards. She watched the floor level fall.

“Oh.” He offered an amused smile even though shadows fell over his eyes. “Sure, but I can’t keep anything from you.” His thumb rubbed over her hand. Just like that she remembered this morning’s phone conversation and tensed.

“You talked to my mom this morning.” The elevator fell steadily. She felt her heartbeat in her throat and she jerked her head to look at him. She couldn’t read anything off of his disconnected smile, or maybe that was her own nerves. Nothing made much sense right now.

“Of course I did, I wasn’t about to risk them running into any trouble.” His smile, despite his best efforts, was hollow and uneasy. Exhaustion? It certainly contributed to it, but his mind was miles away. Miles underground, to be precise. “Just looking out for the people I care for. They’re safe, and you’ll be safe too...”

“What does that mean?” She didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence. Her grip loosened. The elevator rumbled. “I still don’t understand. I don’t know how you got her number, I don’t know how you knew about the evacuation before the county did, and I don’t know what’s going on right now.”

She let go of his hand, her thoughts flying faster than the elevator descended.

“I need you to give me something.”

io’s words tapped against Ares’ wall of thoughts like spring rain on a window, his empty gaze stuck on the elevator’s descending digital display.

_Understanding...a novel thought._

Memories flashed briefly through his mind - the drill, the discovery, the prototype sketches...it was bittersweet to see what it had become. Scientific advancements made by leaps and bounds caused time to fly by, consequences becoming an unspecified afterthought rather than a measured part of the record.

Hubris, that familiar giant slayer, was finally rearing its ugly head.

“We’re here.” He murmured. “Remember that metal I told you about? The stuff we found deep in the tunnels?”

Her face burned hot, ready to burst. Silence. Normally he talked her ear off about the latest project or a design flaw that quality assurance found. She encouraged it.

So the silence stung. 

“I...what metal?” She swallowed back her questions and didn’t fight him when he took her hand. Circumstances meant any forms of affection were off limits, sort of like his bringing her down here. io hadn’t seen a single other person on their way down though. “That...new element your team was working with?”

“Good, you remember. Man, did we celebrate when we first found it. Stronger than anything we had originally thought possible, yet confoundingly simple to work with in the end...” He spun off into a tangent, enthralled by their surprising discovery and losing track of his conversation with io. “Sorry, sorry. The point is that we made one hell of a find, io. Only mined under right conditions near the Earth’s core, this stuff would’ve established us a dominant force in the universe. But we...uh…”

At the end of the hallway Ares fished out his badge, shoving the door to the lab open. Despite being there mere minutes ago, something about the abandoned workstations, dropped reports and unfinished projects felt more dire with io in tow.

Ares made a beeline to his personal computer to scour through his programs. The distant sound of machinery whirred to life as he combed through hidden data.

“We fucked up, io. No risk assessment team meant very little oversight - all we did was take and take until we crossed the tipping point. All of this came at a cost and we’re paying it.”

Her reeling mind struggled to keep up with the new jargon. She only nodded. She remembered the spark in his eyes the first time he told her about it, and how it lit a fire in her hopeful soul. A metal to help bring humans into space. How her imagination exploded with the possibilities he said the discovery could bring.

The lab now looked nothing like the technological oasis in her memories. She followed closely behind in the hopes that she could find her own answers. Her expression twisted into visible confusion and she noticed the dull blaring of an alarm. She couldn’t tell if it was coming from inside the building, or outside.

Her eyes followed the whirring machinery--ah yes, the machinery--until his tone changed. She felt like a helpless passenger in the Horizon I vehicle again, unable to take the wheel and at the mercy of a blind driver. She hung off of his every word.

“Our backup plans failed, but who didn’t see that coming? You start an avalanche, you can’t put the snow back. McNamara was the first one to jump ship, said we were playing with stuff we didn’t understand. We thought he was just getting cold feet. But now? Now…”

The solid _thunk_ of a heavy metal lock being released down an unseen hallway rings through the empty lab, Ares’ sunken eyes drawn to the source of the sound. Rather than waiting for io’s approval he grabbed her hand and dragged her along, pushing past a door with several ‘Hazardous Materials’ signs haphazardly plastered as a means of deterrence.

Smart scientists knew better than to mess with hazardous materials.

Inside lay an undisturbed workshop, yellow warning lights flickered from all corners of the room and illuminated a line of circular pods pressed against the furthest walls. A majority of them appeared to be under construction except for one, the rose-gold tinted pod spared from a fate of remaining incomplete. 

“Look, io. I know this is a lot. Between the Doomsday alloy and the collapse of the planet, it’s probably way more than you can really take in at the moment. But,” Ares holds both of her hands tightly, the spark of determination in his exhausted visage. “I’m gonna keep you safe. I just have to tie up some loose ends here, then...then I’ll make sure you’re safe.”

Words escaped her. Relentless gravity of the situation pulled her in and she realized that whatever was happening now wasn’t just a Lorain County thing, or even an East Coast thing, but a whole world thing. Collapse of the planet. She stammered.

“Hold on, please. Please.”

Something bubbled inside her stomach, like earth’s angry core in its final breath of life. So many people didn’t know what was coming. Her voice dropped to a whisper.

“You _knew_ about this?” Her shoulders tensed, heart skipped a beat. “So you knew that the world was going to collapse and you decided to tell nobody. You and the rest of this self-serving company decided that everybody else is going to die, and for what?!”

She looked to their hands, hands that seemed more like magnets of the same pole. They could be forced together, but would always separate in the end. She grit her teeth.

“Now is not the time for jokes. “Doomsday alloy”? What are we going to do now?”

“I mean, I didn’t know at first. No one did, y’know? We just figured we had hit the jackpot. And yes, the name is silly but we’re a bunch of nerds io. YOU try coming up with a snappy name while - agh, whatever. Look, I have an escape plan and I need your help. Please, this’ll only take a minute.”

io’s exasperation and disbelief hit Ares like a clean shot to the jaw, the anger in her tone leaving a deep purple bruise on his ego. He was the villain in her eyes, despite how hard he had worked to revolutionize humanity’s ability to thrive in space. Part of him understood how awful it seemed, but he had expected more empathy from someone as scientifically-inclined as her.

“There’s a little bit of work that I need to clear up before I go, and it’s absolutely vital that I do it now before it’s lost forever. I had plans to finish it, but that was before I ran out of time. Jump into that pod, okay?”

He abruptly lets go of her hands to scurry over to a workstation, frantically mashing keys to expedite the terminal’s booting process. Was it scientifically sound? Absolutely not, but the tapping of the keys at least gave him an outlet for his nervous energy.

“I’ll do a quick diagnostic, you’ll hit a few switches in there, then I’ll print some stuff out and we’ll go. There’s a seat on a cruiser with your name on it, and it’s right there with the rest of your family.”

She took a deep breath, her hard stare never straying while he walked away. She swallowed back the lump in her throat. Compartmentalising was never easy. Her arms swung at her sides after he let go.

“Right.” She said, words speckled with emotional debris. She pinched the bridge of her nose in agitation and marched towards the illuminated pod. Maybe in another situation she would’ve marveled at the architecture and its rosy hue. The perfect glossy curvature of its shell reflected her frustration, and she angrily scrubbed away smudged end-of-the-day mascara. She fumbled with the door along the backside.

“How do I open it?” She asked, before accidentally triggering lights along the frame. She heard the machinery wake and the door slid open fluidly, like a spaceship from her candy floss dreams. Inside the vessel was functional cream padding, a digital interface, and more buttons than she thought could possibly be necessary. No time to think; she simply wiggled herself inside and squinted at the buttons.

“Okay, now what?” She shouted.

“Perfect, perfect.” He muttered, gnawing on the corner of his lip as io wriggled her way into the only working pod. The lights inside seemed to frame her perfectly, shining like a stage light from above - io was saved. 

A noble sacrifice from her one true love so that she could live free amongst the stars, like some kind of bittersweet ending to a shakespearean tragedy. Ares waxed poetically in silence, trembling fingers rapidly navigating to initiate various safety checks. Better to have loved and lost, I guess.

“There’s a digital interface that I need you to work real quick. Just to test the life support systems, make sure the doors function - that boring stuff. Once it’s done, we’ll head for the ship.” He smiled weakly at her, a hidden hand hovering over the enter key as a large cautionary prompt flashes on the monitor:

‘Warning: The emergency protocol will lock the pod for a minimum of 72 hours, or until external sensors indicate that it is safe to be unlocked. Please ensure that the proper measures have been taken before initiating this process. Proceed?’

“Okay.” She said halfheartedly, distracted by lights and glowing buttons. She definitely saw words on the display, coherent sentences and warning notifications. They went unnoticed in the frenzy.

She maneuvered into the seat--a kneeling chair, with grips at either side for her hands. A hardlined frown set in and she reached for the digital display just begging to be interacted with. It responded immediately to her nervous tap, filling her wide eyes with suppressed wonder. The next moments were quick; the sliding door closed behind her, the display presented a series of ‘startup’ protocols, and she pressed responses with little regard for consequence. _Yes, yes, no, yes, hold the left control stick with your right foot, confirm._ It was too much for a diagnostics.

Then...nothing. io blinked at the display, peaceful and still. It waited. She tapped the screen again but no response. 

“Ares?” She held onto the control handles and shook them as if that might help. The rumbling outside sounded louder. She wondered how long the rest of the world had.

Ares tapped the button before approaching the pod with an unmistakably pained frown, the facade of safety checking now lost as the pod hermetically sealed itself. He didn’t bother to answer her questions or acknowledge her confusion until the pod was entirely locked down, making use of a console outside to speak at her. 

“There isn’t enough time to answer all the questions you probably have, but...it’s better this way. This is the only way to make sure you reach your potential. Out there...” He released the communications button to turn his attention back to the console to prepare the pod for launch. The blaring alarms felt like an angel’s choir compared to what he imagined io’s shouting to be like. By then she’d begun to pound her fists on the glass. She realized he couldn’t hear her at all, though she could hear him. The very thought of her anguished cries made him wince; he knew he was better off not thinking about them.

“A while back I picked up a transmission. Not strong enough to communicate with, but enough for me to set up a vague flight path for your pod. You’ll end up there, I’m pretty sure it’s safe and not a star that’ll burn you up on impact. Uhhh...I uploaded some logs so you can learn while you fly. The suit should make whatever environments you run into tolerable, but the installation’s going to be a bit...tricky. Just try to relax.”

There was a brief pause as Ares fumbled with the system’s obtuse - albeit intentional - password, kickstarting the launch sequence. A whole new set of warning signals start up as the workshop roared to life, performing its final function. Something was coming. A one-way speaker didn’t stop her from screaming bloody murder. 

“There’s a lot you don’t know, and even more you don’t need to know. But know this: everything that I did - that we did - was for the greater good. We thought we were doing the right thing. And now I’m doing the right thing for you. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll see you again out there. But if I don’t...I love you. You can’t say it back but I know you feel the same. Take care of yourself, okay?”

Her throat stung. Rage filled her heart at his words, a confession she’d be buried with in this metal coffin. Robbed of her voice in every sense, it hurt more to stay silent than to scream again but the sounds she made were pathetic and hardly understandable. Her hands pressed firmly against the glass in despair. Through tearful eyes all she could think was what have you done? The second she placed her hands back onto the handles they clamped shut around her forearms, and she thrashed in attempt to be freed.

“Welcome! Please remain calm during your orientation procedure. For optimal bonding, be sure to remain as still as possible, but breathe deeply through the nose. Some unpleasant sensations are to be expected, but will subside.”

io blinked through her tears and gasped for breath, all but hanging her head in defeat. The synthetic voice commanded her to what, now?

“Now initiating bio-scan.”

The pod shifted positions; she could feel gravity directly behind her now. She squinted while a green vector passed over her face. She wished she could at least wipe her running nose.

“Scan complete: high heart rate and distress detected. Administering relaxant.”

_Oh HELL no._

io thrashed again, her arms in their steel cages rattling until her wrists burned from the digging metal. She cursed, loudly, with what little voice she had left and then again when she felt a sharp stab at her back. The sounds of a countdown and alarms melded together. It was overwhelming. White hot, then...nothing. She exhaled, and her eyes slid shut.

-

When she jolted awake, she had no idea how long she’d been out. Searing heat shot both up and down her spine and she caught sight of a near but neon earth outside the window. Her muscles ached and the cuffs did not relent. She croaked as the pain seized her. Then she was unconscious again.

-

The second time she woke to the same white hot agony. It burnt at the base of her neck, but crawled across her skin from back to front, along her tear-stained cheeks and ending in blood-curdling screams. Ares vanished from her thoughts and in his place was inescapable burning misery. Beyond the window, fiery planetary debris hurled through space. Consciousness escaped again with her last vision of earth.

-

The third time she woke, she flung herself out of the awkward seat and hit the glass window above. _Ow…_ Restraints had been lifted; her wrists ached but they were free. Memories of the pain were just whispers in the otherwise silent pod. io rubbed her head. _Where am I?_

She set a hand on the pod’s digital display and got her bearings through a better look at the console. The lab, the news, earth…earth. Realization shot up her spine and she looked more quickly now for an exit. Gravity meant she had landed, though clearly she wasn't awake for it. Gray dust covered the window and she couldn't see through it. 

Surely that couldn’t have been earth during that painful ordeal. She ruminated on the charred memory while navigating through the console, until a digital interface appeared before her eyes...but not on the pod’s display.

“Shit!” She jumped and whipped her gaze left to right. The display followed wherever she looked.

“Analyzing surroundings. No hostiles detected. Oxygen levels sufficient.”

“Who the fuck?” io spat, disoriented by the quick movement and unnatural environmental display that certainly had never been there before. In the glass of the window she stared at her vague reflection. Her eyes looked no different, though bloodshot. She shook her head and returned to the console.

To her surprise the overlay changed, assisting her through the pod console so that she could exit. She had to exit. Earth was gone, but she was promised her family was safe. Somewhere. Where? What had been a nauseating display now framed her sight, offering useful tidbits on her surroundings. Her hands still shook but she felt slightly more confident with this mysterious guidance. The console prompted an exit sequence.

“Recommended: suit activation.”

io blinked while the pod whirred to life.

“Uh…” she stammered, gaze flicking back and forth again. The doors unlocked one latch at a time.

“Invalid response.”

“Uh- yes! Sure. Yes.”

Maybe this was still a horrible fever dream, she considered after speaking aloud to something she wasn’t even sure was real. She hardly acknowledged the last hour as real. Chills brushed down her cheeks from the back of her head. Tiles of a fluid black suit materialized over her skin. In a second the tiles had covered her hands and face, though not suffocating. Comfortable, which was saying a lot considering the last hour’s exciting events. _All those people, are they actually gone?_

A pit sat in her stomach. Her last conversation with her mom hadn’t been the best, hell, her last conversation with _anyone_. She couldn’t have guessed that the entire planet would fall apart in just a day. Everything had been so average. So normal. 

Her gloved palms patted the helmet, as if checking that it was really there. _About as real as she was._ She extended her fingers next, repeatedly closing and opening her fists. All clothed, all real.

“Now opening the door. We at Isotech hope you have a pleasant journey into the great unknown!”

She looked towards the door and its single window. Whatever was out there, she’d find more answers than in here. She would find whatever colony of people was willing to have her. She would find her family and figure out what to do next.

And she would find Ares and wring his scrawny neck with her bare hands for launching her off earth alone in a flying torture chamber.

The last latch lifted, and staring back at her while the door pulled away was the sleek glowing faceplate of an Isotech space suit.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and thanks for reading! :) @syntheticcangel on twitter and instagram for more content. 
> 
> Happy space adventuring!


End file.
